Abstract

Incorporation of wire mesh platinum electrodes into a standard infrared solution cell
yielded an inexpensive and easy to maintain optically transparent thin layer
electrochemical (OTTLE) cell, well suited for IR analysis of species with half-lives of
seconds to minutes. As test bed, two reactions were investigated, which are discussed
in the literature: (i) for [Ru<sub>3</sub>(CO)<sub>12</sub>] evidence was found for at least partial reversibility in
the two-electron reduction process to [Ru&lt;sub&gt;3&lt;/sub&gt;(CO)&lt;sub&gt;11&lt;/sub&gt;]&lt;sup&gt;2-&lt;/sup&gt; , and (ii) for fac-[Re(Cl)(CO)<sub>3</sub>(4bzpy),sub>2</sub>]
(4bzpy = 4-benzoylpyridine) additional information concerning the two-step electron
reduction of the two benzoylpyridine ligands (again partially reversible) could be
obtained.